Today there exists a vast number of railroad crossings where automotive roads and highways cross railroad tracks. In early times signs were erected at such crossings to warn automotive vehicle drivers of the railroad crossing and thereby avoid the possibility of collision with a train. Later such signs were made larger and equipped with flashing lights. Major crossings were equipped with barrier bars that were automatically raised and lowered in response to the sensed presence of a train. The increase in the size of these signs and signals, and the addition of barrier bars to crossing signals, has meant that these apparatuses have had to be supported on stronger foundations in the ground aside the railroad crossings.
Railroad signal foundations have heretofore been constructed in a number of manners. Some foundations have been formed by merely digging a hole in the ground and filling the hole with concrete to which upright signal masts have been anchored. This has been costly in that it is required that mixed concrete be transported in fluid form to each site.
In more recent years railroad crossing signal and traffic control foundations have been made of precast, steel reinforced, concrete components erected one atop the other in a ground hole. This has typically been done by digging a hole in the ground adjacent a railroad crossing. With workers located both within the hole and above the ground, the foundations have been erected piece by piece by positioning a base on the floor of the hole upon which a relatively slender pillar is built with interlocking blocks to approximately ground level. A crown, sometimes referred to as a doughnut, to which a signal mast may be mounted, is finally mounted atop the pillar and the hole filled.
Foundations of the type just described have proven to be very hazardous and costly to construct. Not only is working in a deep hole in the earth inherently dangerous, but the workers have had to manipulate heavy concrete components as they are successively each lowered by cable into the holes in close proximity to the workers. Many workers have been injured and even killed from time to time from earth avalanches and mishaps in offloading and manipulating the individual concrete components as the foundation is erected within the hole. Additionally, working under such hazardous conditions has caused the time necessary to erect such foundations to be substantial.
Accordingly, it is seen that a railroad signal and traffic control foundation has long remained needed that may be produced, transported and erected in a safe and cost efficient manner. It is to the provision of such therefore that the present invention is primarily directed.